How to approach this?

I am looking for advice into my next role at my current organization. We are small(15 people) but growing and I am looking to take a vested interest in moving forward. Currently we have the following.

4 Support people including me
4 Dev people including dev(mgr)
2 trainers
1 project manager

Currently my title is Support manager and my day to day duties include

Managing all support related issues
Managing tickets in and out of dev
Managing direction of the support team
Hiring/Firing
More, but these are the main

I have been here about 2 years and posed the question to my manager(CEO) about having a conversation as to where are the next steps for me in the business.

I already really manage the entire technical team so I am thinking about asking him to change my title to CIO where I would manage the dev, support, training, and project teams. My questions are below

With us being so small would CIO be a too aggressive role
What type of % salary increase would you ask for in a move like that? Support mgr to CIO?
Has anyone else on this board made a switch similar?

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Comments

GAngel

The CIO title in a company that small holds no weight if you're trying to leverage it down the road. You wouldn't be managing a budget on a team large enough if I were interviewing you to justify a senior management jobs. As well if you're involved in the day to day that's not what a CIO does. Qualification wise I'd expect my senior execs to have atleast 1 business related masters degree and a bare minimum of 10 years increasing senior management experience. You also don't seem to realize the liability from a legal perspective that comes with a senior management role.

I'm not sure what you mean by vested interest maybe elaborate a bit?

cknapp78

I tend to agree with GAngel here. Since your company is so small, advancement and promotion can be very difficult. The other thing you have to consider is that asking for a CIO position with management over other groups you may not have worked in can cause a serious amount of strife internally. If you have worked with them before, what do you possess that makes you their senior? As GAngel said, a Masters or at least 10 years of experience can usually sway pre-existing teams to accommodate your leadership.

My first management role was to take over a server farm installation as project manager for the Navy on the west coast. I was directly responsible for about 15 employees and another 100 under them. My biggest roadblock was my age. At the time I was only 22 and had employees twice my age reporting to me. Once they found out that 5 large server farm projects of at least 3000+ servers under my belt, any questioning of my ability went away pretty quickly. I myself haven't even finished my college degree and I will be 35 on Wednesday. Experience is the big kicker here. Trust me, when I took my first IT Director role, there was a lot I wasn't ready for. I adapted but it was a tough haul.

If you are really serious about a CIO role, I would suggest looking into either ITIL or PMP or both. Would definitely show the manager that you are grooming yourself for upper management. If you prefer more of a technical role, then i would suggest more of a specialization in a field you are already certified in.

Just my two cents.

Corey

crazyITguy

This is the type of answer I was looking for. I wanted to see what everyone else has seen from a business perspective. I do have more career experience than anyone in the technical team, but I had the same concern. I just am not sure how to show people outside the organization that I really already manage the entire technical team. I enjoy what I do, but at some point may need to move on.

@GAngel
I probably should of elaborated more, but he has mentioned in the past giving me some vested ownership in the company. I am looking long term and so that is why I mentioned this.

@cknapp78
I have started the ITIL study(50%) done and have been accepted to take the PMP so I am moving in that direction.

cknapp78

Glad to help. Let us know how thing work out for you. Always willing to lend a hand.

Corey

GAngel

If you're managing the other managers then Director of (insert whatever suits your overall role) is probably what you're looking at. Owning a piece of the pie would also make that quite legit jsut make sure you know your liabilites I can't stress that enough.

If the company is going to continue growing you will need more than just a few spreadsheets for the budget side so think on some finance courses they will save your butt down the road.